Qualcomm Life Announces Formation of Advisory Council, New Customer Collaborations and Investment in AirStrip Technologies

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Qualcomm Life Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM), today announced the formation of the Qualcomm Life Advisory Council and the expansion of its 2net™ Ecosystem with new customer collaborations. These include Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, the largest children's hospital in California, Sharp HealthCare, a not-for-profit integrated regional health care delivery system based in San Diego, and Advanced Warning Systems, a company focused on wireless remote patient monitoring. Additionally, the Qualcomm Life Fund expanded its portfolio with an investment in AirStrip Technologies, a pioneer in mobile medical software applications. Qualcomm Life will be showcasing its customers' devices and applications, as well as its 2net Platform and Hub at the 2012 HIMSS Annual Conference at the Venetian Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas (Booth #13234).

"Qualcomm Life has experienced significant momentum in just the first two months since our launch. The formation of our Advisory Council, which includes industry leaders from providers, payors, pharma, academia, manufacturers and venture capital firms, gives us the opportunity to bring thought leaders together to define and broaden our vision and impact," said Rick Valencia, vice president and general manager of Qualcomm Life. "The Qualcomm Life Fund also continues to make strategic investments in early-stage high-technology ventures in support of our goal of accelerating global wireless health services and technology adoption. AirStrip is a perfect example of this as its technology retrieves information wirelessly both at the point of care in the hospital and remotely."

Formation of Qualcomm Life Advisory Council

Chaired by Dr. Ilene Klein, Qualcomm Life's Chief Medical Advisor, the Advisory Council is comprised of several influential leaders in health care, wireless and mobile health. It is being created to help Qualcomm Life validate its solutions and services and provide valuable feedback to help grow its business.

"Given the proliferation of wireless technology worldwide, we have a unique opportunity to impact how care is delivered. Mobilizing patient data in a secure environment and making it readily accessible offers a solution that we expect will decrease costs and improve health outcomes across different disease populations. In convening our Council, Qualcomm Life hopes to provide viable solutions for some of health care's tougher challenges," said Dr. Klein.

"New technologies to help remotely manage diabetes and other chronic conditions, to care for our growing elderly population and to deliver care anytime, anywhere are critically needed," said Dr. Eric Topol, who is a member of the Advisory Council and also chief academic officer, Scripps Health; professor of genomics, The Scripps Research Institute; and, The Gary and Mary West Chair of Innovative Medicine and Senior Consultant in Cardiovascular Medicine, Scripps Clinic. "In the near future, the use of wireless platforms will help address these needs, improving the quality and cost structure of care delivery. Qualcomm Life is a leader in the field and I look forward to serving on the Advisory Council to help it achieve its goal of enabling its customers to innovate for the betterment of health care."

Growth of 2net Ecosystem

To date, more than 50 customers and collaborators are integrating with Qualcomm Life's 2net Ecosystem, creating an interoperable and value-enhancing ecosystem of medical devices, mobile medical applications and health services companies. These include new customers Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, Sharp HealthCare and Advanced Warning Systems.

Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, a 442-bed pediatric care facility providing the largest source of comprehensive pediatric medical services in San Diego has entered into a unique collaboration with Qualcomm Life to improve the effectiveness of pediatric health care through advances in wireless technology. Rady Children's and its affiliated physicians network will help clinically evaluate and test medical devices for remote patient care wirelessly integrated by the 2net Platform, offering wireless health providers integrated in the 2net Ecosystem the ability to test their technology in a clinical setting at a premier pediatric hospital.

Sharp HealthCare, which includes four acute-care hospitals, three specialty hospitals and two affiliated medical groups, and Advanced Warning Systems, have each entered into collaborations with Qualcomm Life to wirelessly enable existing health care service offerings with the 2net Platform and Hub.

Additional Investments by Qualcomm Life Fund

The Qualcomm Life Fund is working to accelerate wireless health services and technology adoption, specifically focusing on wireless health business initiatives that will help drive 2net Platform adoption and the adoption of other wireless health initiatives. In addition to investing in the wireless health companies Sotera Wireless, Telcare, AliveCor, Cambridge Temperature Concepts and WorkSmart Labs, the Fund recently made a strategic investment in AirStrip Technologies.

AirStrip Technologies is working with Qualcomm Life to develop wireless solutions that seamlessly connect doctors, caregivers and emergency workers with vital patient information at the hospital and from the home. AirStrip Technologies built its revolutionary AppPoint™ software development platform with a vision of securely sending critical patient information directly from hospital monitoring systems, bedside devices, electronic health records and home devices to a clinician's or caregiver's mobile device. FDA-cleared and designed to meet HIPAA-security requirements, AirStrip applications are powered over wired and wireless networks, delivering patient data anytime, anywhere.

"Today, mobile technology plays one of the most important roles as we enter the largest health care transformation ever. As the model of care shifts to an outcomes-based approach, mobility will be an essential vehicle to develop a more collaborative, patient-centered model that delivers improved care at lower costs," said Alan Portela, CEO of AirStrip Technologies. "The AirStrip-Qualcomm Life collaboration will enable anytime, anywhere delivery of live, vital patient information throughout the continuum of care with an initial focus on home health. While the initial focus will be on congestive heart failure patients, we recognize a strong demand to expand availability to other types of chronic diseases and will work with Qualcomm Life to aggressively expand our reach in meaningful and collaborative ways."

About Qualcomm Life

Qualcomm Life is defining and connecting the wireless health network to improve lives and advance the capabilities of medical devices. Qualcomm Life is focused on device connectivity and data management and empowers medical device manufacturers to deliver wireless health quickly and easily to those who need it. The Qualcomm Life team has the experience and the wireless know-how to make the enormous complexities of a wireless connection look simple.  We draw from our parent company's more than 25 years of wireless connectivity experience, know-how and universal interoperability to enable unified machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. To learn more, please visit www.qualcommlife.com.

About Qualcomm 

Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) is the world leader in 3G and next-generation mobile technologies. For more than 25 years, Qualcomm ideas and inventions have driven the evolution of digital communications, linking people everywhere more closely to information, entertainment and each other. For more information, visit Qualcomm's website, OnQ blog, Twitter and Facebook pages.

Qualcomm is a registered trademark of Qualcomm Incorporated. 2net and Qualcomm Life are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Qualcomm Contacts:
Emily Kilpatrick, Corporate Communications
Phone: 1-858-845-5959
Email: [email protected]

Warren Kneeshaw, Investor Relations
Phone: 1-858-658-4813
Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Qualcomm Incorporated